Construction: Montage - Split screen

Based on the research our group has conducted on the split-screen effect this is the result of what we had produced when using Premiere Pro CS5. We decided to make transitions to the split screen as well to help the montage flow better from shot to shot. The split-screen mainly made up from image-matts, offsets and presents looked very effective when rendered and helped tell the audience a big chunk of our story through short snappy cuts and split-screen sequences.

Editing: Software

To edit our film the software we have decided to use this year is Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. Our group felt as if that this piece of software offered more in effects and provided a more precise level of cuts than the previous piece of software we used last year which was iMovie. CS5 has further enhancements such as color corrections and other effects which will give our production a much more movie feel, whereas this wouldn't be the case on other editing pieces of software.

Problems Encountered During the Production

On shooting the first scene we immediately encountered a problem, location which affected how we planned to shoot scenes. The location for our first scene which happened to be a recurring  location in our production was Victoria Station which we later came to realize that we were not able to film there due to the public and other suspicions, also that we needed to pay and also have a license to film in the station.

Mid way through filming we were stopped by security guards, as we felt this was a particularly good setting for our production we were determined to finish filming in the station. We continued filming again once they had gone and upon their return we decided to try and negotiate with the security guards which paid off with us convincing them to allow us to film for 5 more minutes which we proceeded in filming for another 30 minutes, ensuring we gathered enough coverage in that time.

Another disruption that caused some problems for us was battery life on the camera, as the camera would be in use by our media class it would tend to be either be near to an empty battery or the battery completely drained and filming would be cut short. To get past this we took the simple steps of having another battery pre-charged and/or having the current battery charged to some extent which has made for longer filming time and less hassle

Research: Music for title sequence

Music became a struggle to find because we didn't want to use somebody else song. Hence we opted use instrumentals made from people who make independent sounds. The effect we wanted to present was kind of dreamy music with the some sort of beat to it to fit the transitions of the title sequence. We found a song called 'remember you' to be ideal for going along with the title sequence's transitions, and plus adding to the effect of mystery and a dream atmospheric tone which we wanted to represent from the outset. To avoid any legal action being taken place our group asked permission from a person  that remixed this track and we was lucky enough to be granted permission to use it.

Planning: Costume

We had to take careful consideration into the costume that we had our characters are seen in, this is due to the connotations that go along with whatever characters are seen wearing.
As the characters within our production were to be affiliated with organised crime, we took inspiration from various Organised crime/Gangster films.

Iconic Suit and Tie Ensemble in Reservoir Dogs 

Again we were influenced by Pulp Fiction and costume choice

After looking at 'Goodfellas' we noticed a trend within films of this genre and costumes worn by their characters. This reinforced our decisions in having costumes for our characters to be suits and ties. Our understanding of connotation and denotation lead us to believe that this sort of costume suggests that our characters are at a higher level of crime and not just petty criminals.

Connotations surrounding such costume choice reinforce viewers beliefs of who the characters are.

Research: music for montage

The music we had chosen for the montage had to create the feel of a lapse in time within our media products world, we felt this instrumental created this and combined with various shots and with correct editting this should the desired effect that we are looking to achieve within this portion of our media production.

Split screen and Inspiration behind it

The use of split screen in our media production was to show what the couple within our production is going through despite them being in two different places. As we knew our audience is that of a younger generation we decided that this was the best way to ensure we had ensnared their attention as the split screen and camera shots almost replicate those found in music videos our audience are exposed to.

In 500 days of summer split screen is used to show two different instances although in the same setting, we thought this to be an interesting element to have so we decided upon a way we could create our own rendition of this and came up with split screening a scene to create the unsettling feeling of anxiety and panic between the couple although they are in two different locations.

What had inspired us to do this was 2006 film Kidulthood, we thought that the way they managed to expose the audience to what is happening with both groups of people was highly effective even though both groups were not near each other.
We decided we would include our own rendition of this in our media production as it would retain the attention of viewers as well as giving them further insight into the action of the scene.

Planning: Character Profiles

Miles Fehmi 

 

Miles Fehmi is our protagonist in this film. He is the person that gets involved in an unwanted activity which puts himself and his girlfriend in danger. We wanted to make this character act very vulnerable to represent something he has to protect, in this case his girlfriend. Therefore, the personality which Miles posses is a very conceited character who hides much of his emotion until push comes to shove. The reason we wanted to present Miles in this way was to show the dominance and power of the other characters in the production (the villains). The hero's quest in this film is for his beloved girlfriend and his fight for freedom.

Sophia Abbassy

Sophia is the girlfriend of Miles and is shown in this film as very sweet, innocent and vulnerable who is always at danger no matter where she turns. However Sophia does have a nature to love being treated and going out to places to eat and having money. This type of personality Sophia has causes the story have a equilibruim to it which can change at any second because the audience are believed to think shes trustworthy but is she? This type of character adds a twist to our storyline which adds to the story and will make paudiences think more about the storyline.

Lekan Akako

Even though Lekan's role isn't as substantial to the other roles in this production his influence in the short movie is vital for the way things flow within the way the story unfolds. Lekan is a character who is very devious and sneaky, he works alongside the main gangster (Omed) and assists him in the pursuit of capturing Miles. Lekan works under the rador and monitors on the streets every move that Miles makes and reports this to Omed. His personality is very unpredictable and has violent nature, but also can be manipulated by the main gangster.

Omed Popal

Omed is the main gangster who has a vendetta against the protagonist. A truly methodical character who plans his every move Omed's personality and nature helps add to the effect of the production. His personality is a bit like Lekans unpredictable however with Omed he can snap at any second no matter the circumstances. We needed a character like this in our production to present a dominance and power over the other characters in our film. Without this role in our film the story would have no substance and edge to it.



Location Problems

Whilst searching for locations around our school our group encounter several issues. Firstly when our group went to DT rooms to check for there availability we found that the rooms may not be available every time when we seek to shoot. This constraint is going to affect our schedule, so we have come up with an alternative method that will overcome this, which is to film at lunch times and after school. This way our group is avoiding lessons as students will be on their way home, meaning we can film. However the group realizes that are schedule will be affected either way. Our group also anticipated the corridors are likely to become noisy during certain intervals during the day, with addition of students and teachers walking around the corridors from time to time. Our filming routine will be affected as students and teachers may look at the camera distracting our focus and progress. Our group understands that there isn't a way to uphold this as its something unavoidable; our group will have to therefore shoot scenes efficiently to aviod disruption during the production of our film. Moving on from this, the hostage scene will have to be shot when the school is empty, this will be something hard to achieve as the school is hardly empty as its contained with teachers and students. The best way to uphold this is to film in the half term as there is a minimal amount of people in the school, maximizing our chances of shooting this scene.

Schedule problems

Problems between us group members and our timetables:

Some problems we had faced was the difficulty of shooting times, as our timetables were not completely the same, there would be times where Kingsley would have free periods, where I would have lessons.

To over come this problem we agreed that during times when all of us or at least 1 of us have a free period  we can shoot or edit our footage as tasks where delegated between the group. This was an effective way to keep the progression of our media work constant instead of waiting for opportunities when all of us are available.

Also times when we need to shoot school pupils would be walking around going about their business. This posed the problem of them disrupting the scene either by making noise or walking on to the set. To get passed this we decided to shoot during lesson time, this was when the school was at its most quiet as pupils would be in their classrooms. Although this meant we had an extremely limited amount of time to shoot, this proved to be a learning curve as we are learning to shoot very efficiently in any given amount of time.

Alternatives where also arranged in spite of this and shooting after school was another way  for the group to overcome the restraint of times available to shoot. This also solved the problem of pupils or teachers disrupting production as many of them would have gone home.

Group members timetable

 

Above is our timetables within our group. Our group decided it will be suitable to print off timetables to see when we are free to shoot when we needed to shoot and when we needed to edit. For us this was useful because we can create an official schedule which we can stick to whilst during the course of creating the short media production, enhancing our time management skills. 



Schedule

Today we have created schedule because it will help outline what we can do everyday each week so that when a group member is not in the other member will have a secure idea of what they could do instead of wasting that time. We have currently only planned up to until half term because objectives may vary depending on how much we can get done within this time period. Drawing towards half term, on the last day before we break up we plan to discuss our next schedule for after half term.

Continuity exercise in class

During one of our media lessons our group and the rest of the class where involved in a continutiy excercise to demonstrate power and status, and we had to show this within a 30 second clip. This excercise was a success and benefitted our group because we had a very short time frame to present and finish filming and editing this exercise which we completed. Resulting this our group realised that we can film in much quicker time scales and can represent people walking across rooms to have power and status through a range of extreme camera angles such as low angle shots for instance. Furthermore, we understood that if we had a range of shots already planned for a specific scene then the likelihood of the scene being completed quicker is of higher possibility as shown in this exercise. We also gained an insight into what shots are most useful to represent people as either inferior or dominant within the frame of the shot.

Testing (Over the shoulder shot)

When discussing potential ideas with the group,the over the shoulder shot was something that became apparent as an essential shot  in one way or another. Our group opted to implement this in our media piece. We conducted a few test shots to see whether we were creating the desired effect from shooting the over the shoulder shot.



Over The Shoulder Still

When viewing what had been shot as an over the shoulder shot, we were pleased with the results and with other viewers providing positive feedback on how it had been shot, we were confident in using an over the shoulder shot.

Testing (Microphone)

We tested the microphone in several environments and in the locations that we had selected for scenes in our movie. We found that particually in restaurants a lot of background sound was present and this was due to other conversations that went on in the room. This hindered the dialogue that actors had to say in our movie and affected the volume of their voice, making it hard to be picked up by the camera. Ouside the same incident was present and this was due to factors such as wind and transport affecting the sensitivity of the microphone. Our group realise when it comes to actual shooting that we will need to over come this constraint. We thus looked at how close the actor has to be towards the mic for relatively clear speech to be present. We tested the actor from a range of distances varying from 3feet all the way to 6feet. Our findings where that from when it got to about 5-6 feet the actors voice became rather quiet and bleneded into the background noise that was around them. However, at 3-4 feet their voice stood out more and was more clearly heard with background noise a minimal problem.  This test was useful for us as it meant we could alter shots to overcome background noise and we would know where the actor would have to be positioned to be heard effectively.

Second storyboard

 

 

 

This is the storyboard that we are going to use in our production we need to look at some shots at the end of this storyboard and may need to adjust some of them such as removing the skeleton and the virus part at the start as we may just use establishing shots but nonetheless this is relatively close to what we are going to be shooting.

Location (Jordan's House)

During the creation of our storyline our group realized that we need to find a house to use for one of the scenes in the production. We where lucky to find one of our colleagues in our 6form who was able to provide us with his to use for scene 2 of our production. Scene two included a scene where the protagonist wakes up hence we needed a bed and a room with a decent amount of space to fit our kit in and incorporate unique shots. We found that Jordan's house provided these conventions with great sources of light and room which will be beneficial when it comes to shooting this scene.

Audience theory

After reading up on various explanations of audience theory, we were able to reach an agreement of which theory we were to follow in order to tailor our production to appeal to our chosen audience. 

Our chosen audience was was from 14 years of age to early 20's as we fall between these age groups, we felt we identified more with them and understood what may appeal to them the most. From the theories we read through, Uses and Gratification model was chosen as we believed that our audience would be engaged through atleast one of these three elements; 

• To Be Entertained
• In order to identify with others in the situation
• To escape from their daily lives

We understood that our audience would prefer a production that did not feel stationary in its cinematography, we knew that they would be much more engaged with much more dynamic shots and editing which closely resembles the music videos that our age group is exposed/attracted to.

As you can see in this video camera movements are vivid and and dynamic, parts where the camera seems to be stationary effective editing compensates and adds a new dimension to the frame. This is what we believed kept our audience engaged, which we made efforts to include in the production of our media piece.

Decision on storyline

Down to a long and hard discussion the group have decided to go with a storyline that differs from the ideas in other posts. We have decided to go with a storyline where two main gangsters are present and there quest is to find the protagonist who has taken a prized possession from them. The hero has a quest for freedom however he keeps getting hassled by these gangsters as they have found out that he has taken the money from a room where he used to work for them. The protagonist also has a girlfriend who he needs to protect from these gangsters due to the fact that if they don't get what they want they are going to kidnap his girlfriend. Then, one day we whiles on their way out his girlfriend gets taken away while the protagonist has forgotten something. He then travels around the city in his quest to find his girlfriend, until he bumps in to one of these gangsters and gets beaten up and taken away. He gets battered and bruised while his girlfriend watches in a private areas but gets away when the gangster gets a phone call and takes his girlfriend with him. The protagonist still has the package from the gangsters .... until one day he wakes up and finds that the money and his girlfriend are gone. The reason why we have used this storyline is because it is very broad and we can use various amounts of shots to show power,status and meaning with a storyline like this.

Genre

The term 'Genre' relates to the categorising of a product especially a product of media i.e Music,Film or Books. They are put into these categories due to their conventions and characteristics and placed in a particular category because of the characteristics that media product has displayed. For example a film that were to have a substantial amount of eerie music and ghosts/apparitions appearing would fall into the genre of 'Horror'. This is due to other films carrying the same traits of that particular were also dubbed as a 'Horror' movie. A flm or media production will be put into a genre through what it contains and what that can be associated with, if a film were to have a killing but the audience do not know who the killer is, that film would be associated with the 'Mystery' genre.

Knowing this, we used it to our advantage as our understanding for genre enabled us to implement certain characteristics and traits from other films to incorparate in our own production, knowing the associations that will be made when the audeience view it. For example we wanted to give our audience the sense of urgency that our character was feeling, therefore we included a kidnapping and some dynamic camera movements to encapsulate the audience in the action of our media production, trying to imitate that of what would be expected in a feature film 'Thriller'.

Ideas for shooting

These are some of the stills that we took which we possibly plan to use for our production

Storyboard first draft

 

This is the first draft of our story board for the first scene, where we had all gathered bits of our ideas put together but we plan to do many alterations in the process till we are satisfied.

Alternative idea

During our brainstorm activity inside class and discussion outside school we came up an alternative idea. This idea was a virus that affects reality, the arises from a social networking site. This virus activates when a 

young school boy decides to disobey orders and browse social networking sites when he wasn't supposed to, which have severe implications towards the school. The virus then goes on the dominate the school infrastructure and affects the boys livelihood as he cannot escape this virus which haunts everything he browses, with the addition of affecting the way the school is run in the process. The student has to therefore destroy the computer to save the school and most of save himself. We had a problem pursuing this storyline because when we tried to explain it to others like our media teacher it was very typical. Furthermore, we wanted to make this storyline more darker so we could add more effects during the process of editing the media production to eye catch the audience that will be attracted towards a storyline like this. Moreover, making this story more darker means we can expand on the types of shots we want to include in this storyline and create weird angles which will keep the viewers watching our film. During our groups discussion we found it very complex of how to make this story darker and create effective scences to make this film effective, this is why we didn't move forward with this storyline.

Storyline idea 2

During our brainstorm activity inside class and discussion outside school we came up with a second idea. This idea was a virus that affects reality, the arises from a social networking site. This virus activates when a 

young school boy decides to disobey orders and browse social networking sites when he wasn't supposed to, which have severe implications towards the school. The virus then goes on the dominate the school infrastructure and affects the boys livelihood as he cannot escape this virus which haunts everything he browses, with the addition of affecting the way the school is run in the process. The student has to therefore destroy the computer to save the school and most of save himself. We had a problem pursuing this storyline because when we tried to explain it to others like our media teacher it was very typical. Furthermore, we wanted to make this storyline more darker so we could add more effects during the process of editing the media production to eye catch the audience that will be attracted towards a storyline like this. Moreover, making this story more darker means we can expand on the types of shots we want to include in this storyline and create weird angles which will keep the viewers watching our film. During our groups discussion we found it very complex of how to make this story darker and create effective scenes to make this film effective, this is why we didn't move forward with this storyline.

Storyline idea 1

Our first idea which the group is a demented story about a boy who has been living out a worldwide apocalypse (something like a deadly virus outbreak that made all life cease to exist. Of course with some survivors, for example him)

The film starts of with a (romantic) montage where a guy has developed a close relationship with a girl within science lessons, (the boy could throw a paper ball at her saying something cheeky, this shows the main character and the girl's relationship.) The montage ends when the boy and girl are at the back of the class getting along when she leans in to kiss the main character's cheek.

Just before her lips reaches his cheek the scene changes, the next scene begins with the same person, in worn out clothing, more roughed up waking up. He doesn't realize it was a dream so goes in search of the girl in his dream, we know this because in his hand he has a scrunched up photo of the girl that was in the dream. (The back story of that is she was his high school lover)

Whist the main protagonist is searching different classes another survivor was coincidentally exploring the school and runs into a classroom with the main character hugging his lover.
The survivor asks: 'Are you okay sir?? Are you alive?'
The main character turns around and the girl he was hugging was actually a skeleton. He stands there guarding the skeleton who he still things is his sweetheart.

The survivor with gun pointing at the main character asks him again:
'Sir, are you alive or are you one of them?!'
The main character grabs the weapon still guarding the skeleton
He charges at the survivor, and the film ends with a shot of the survivor closing his eyes
And then a gunshot sound.

Narrative theory

To look at our storyline more critically we looked a narrative theories which we learn't in our media lesson. Narrative theories refer to the way the story is told in both fictional and non-fictional texts, we looked at theorist Propp and Toderov the help aid our storyline.

 

Narrative theory 1: Propp

 

Propp looked at folk tales and saw some structures they shared in common. He found 8 character roles and 31 functions that mvoe the story along. The 8 character roles can also be types of action because they are no the sort of roles whihc appear in the cast list. One character in the film or place can occupy several of his character roles or types of action. These are

 

1. The villian

2. The hero (not always good byt always carries the story along. the central character and not always male)

3. The doner (who provides an object with some special property)

4. The helper (who helps the hero)

5. The princess (the rewaard for the hero and object of the villan's schemes)

6. Her father (who rewards the hero)

7. The dispatcher (who sends the hero on his way)

8. The false hero

 

The 31 funcitons includes events such as:

- The heros is prohibited from doing something.

- The villian learns something about the victim

- The villian is punished

 

And etc.

 

Narrative theory 2: Todorov

 

Todorov also saw the underlying structure on narratives

 

He argues that stories all begin in 'equilibruim' when all forces are in balance. This disrupted by a problem to cause 'disequilibrium' Then more events take place before a 'new equilibrium' is established. Many film makers today don't bother setting up the normal world in order to disrupt it with a problem (a killer shark etc.) and go straight for the problem and disequilibrium. However, there will always be a sense in the film of what life was like before the problem came along and therefore what the characters can return to if they can only sort the problem out.

 

These narrative theories has given our group and insite of how to plot our story and how to add twists that may be beneficial or detrimental towards the hero. We had also found within our storyline that the characters that we have scouted and the roles we have given to them coincide with Propps character archetypes and functions as the villian does get punished for his actions. Furthermore, we had also noticed that the equilbrium changes when the hero's girlfriend gets kidnapped but a 'new equilbrium' occurs when they become reunited as the story comes to a close.

  
        






 

Location (The Pizza Factory)

The pizza factory is located at the top of Victoria station and we found this while looking for locations around the area. This location is particually ideal for what we imagined our scene to look like. The lighting is perfect for shooting as its not too dark and not too bright making the room have an essense of natural background light making the scene look more realistic than other locations we have found. The Pizza Factory is further ideal for capturing two-shots and over-the-shoulder shots in the way the seats have been arranged. Our group had further noticed that this location was very similiar to Pulp-Fiction's cafe scene hence the effect of tension with the addition of low key lighting really would add a great effect towards our opening scene.

Location (Marks and Spencers)

During our free periods on a friday our group went around Victoria station to find good locations for our first scene of shooting. Our idea was to shoot a scene in a cafe where the protagonist and his girlfriend would be talking. We knew we needed a location that had space and was assembled in a way which we could work around shots. We found this location in Marks and Spencers to be a good place to shoot due the space around the cafe, meaning we would have space to put the camera and the tripod. However, we found that the way the chairs and tables where assembled werent what we was looking for when we had two-shots in mind therefore we couldn't use this location.

New Camera Vs Old Camera

 

 

This year our group has been enabled to use the Canon EOS 7D camera for shooting. This pros of this camera in comparison to last years camera above is that it can shoot up 1080p videos from up to 25 frames per second which is great enhancement from the 720p recording from the previous Panasonic camera. This enables us to create much more detailed shots where all the elements of the setting are in full focus, we wasn't able to use picture of this quality last year and thus the effect of a movie picture was lost because of this. We can also attach various lenses to the Canon EOS 7D camera which is beneficial as we can zoom into areas from a much longer distance than we could before. The lenses that can be attached from this camera can be from 50mm to 125mm which allows the frame and picture to be adjusted based on type of scene we want to film which is a huge improvement from the one and only lens we had avaliable on the previous camera last year. However the disadvantage with the Canon camera is it's microphone is not as good when dialogue is used as the previous Panasonic camera, thus we will have to use an add-on mic which clips on the top of the camera to get a more clearer sound when people are making dialogue. In spite of this overall, we are at a big advantage this year as big blockbuster films have used this exact piece of equipment such as the likes of The Avengers and 127 Hours, putting us a better position in terms of getting a better quality short film than last year.

New Kit Vs Old Kit

This is the one of the new pieces of equipment that our group may be using when we start shooting our new film. In one of our media lessons we where introduce to this tripod that is used for the Canon T05 7D camera, which our group may be using for some parts of the shooting during our film production. The advantage this piece of kit will have towards our group is that it will keep the camera stable and secure, and with the addition of moving about in certain angels to create effective camera angels. 

 In comparison with our old tripod of last year this new tripod above is much more useful as its considerable heavier than the tripod from last year (on the right). This allows the camera to be much more stable in windy conditions during filming. The new tripod can be adjust to higher heights than the previous tripod from last year and can reach lower levels on the ground as well allow high and low angle shots to be generated much easier than last year. However the downfall with the new tripod we are using this year is that it is considerably bigger in size making it impractical to move about during shots and to locations because of its size and weight where as this wasn't a difficulty with the old piece of equipment. 

Here is the mono-pod. The mono-pod is a piece of kit that has been implemented in our media department over the past year. This kit will be very useful for getting shots from high-angles, as the mono-pod can extend higher than most pieces of equipment used in the media. Furthermore, this piece of equipment can be useful for over the shoulder shots when people are walking as you can obtain much more stable movements whilst walking with the mono-pod, whereas last year we was restricted from this piece of equipment and had to use the camera handheld which created a much more agitated shot.

Following on from this, this piece of the equipment was introduced to our media group last year when we was doing our first short two minute film. We didn't use this piece of equipment as we found it very confusing, but with a demonstration from our media teacher the group feels this piece of kit can be useful. The reason for this, is that it can create very still movements of when someone is walking as this piece of equipment attaches to your shoulders, enabling walking movements to take place or jerky movements; for example someone being chased.

Taxi Driver

In terms of using Taxi driver as inspiration, we're using aspects of its cinematography to implement into our production. The way the camera is mainly fixed on the main character engrossing the audience in the characters world, we found this an interesting element that would make our production more captivating to the audience.

Also small parts of the storyline contributed to our idea as in Taxi Driver the character is under some sort of elusion about the world. We used this as a platform for our idea in making the character confused about what is going on around him

 

Training Day

In our storyline there is a scene where a car is involved, however me and my partner realized that shots are going to be hard to create in the environment of a car as inside the care is a relatively confined environment. We looked at movies where gangsters where involved and found that Training Day had the most useful shots that will help establish the setting and get good view angles of the characters inside the environment.  The shots in Training day vary from low-angle shots to two shots to close-up shots, all these shots me and my partner found would be useful to use in our scene to help show the status of the characters in the situation that there in whilst in the scene.

Another reason why we also opted to research Training day was because of various bedroom scenes that are implemented in this film. There are in particular close up and extreme close up shots in and out of focus that show the element of confusion on the characters face and by distorting the image the audience is as confused and anxious as the protagonist. Our idea originally was for a bedroom scene to take place where the protagonist is woken up by an alarm or phone call of some sort. This movie helped enhance our creative ideas of what shots to use during this scene and how the focus on the lens is used to add effect.

Drive (2011)

We needed to find inspiration and ideas that linked to our genre of gangsta and mystery. Drive was a perfect movie for our group as it demonstrates mysterious characters with characteristics of a typical gangsta. Our group used the main character in this picture to the left, and used some of his characteristics and implemented it into our villain even  though this character is a hero in Drive. We decided to use the conventions of this character in our movie for our villain to add suspense and drama to our short film, as we are trying to portray a mysterious character with psychotic ideas but you never know what he is thinking, thus engaging the audience.

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs we researched as the main characters where based on typical gangsters to be frank. From watching this film we thought it would be a good idea to dress the gangster's in suits which their hair slicked backwards as it would make the audience perceive them as a typical gangster looking for trouble. The other reason we looked at this film as part of our research is because a part of our idea for this short film was for the protagonist to get kidnapped and put into a room similar to environment where the victim is tied to a chair in Reservoir Dogs. This movie was hence useful to us as we could see how to recreate shots that would add the drama that shown in a similar environment in this film. We therefore found this as a useful piece of research towards our media production as it helped enhance our idea, and showed us how our characters should appear to make them suit the genre we are trying to portray in our media production.

Scream

In our story various phone call scenes take place containing the protagonist and the villain. Me and my partner found Scream to be a useful counterpart in aiding us into how we could do this effectively. We found ways into how we could show emotions of the character due to the words that where said on the other end of the phone, and also found the camera shots that would be useful to show this. Scream furthermore, showed us how to we could the audience can hear the words that are being said on the other end of the phone and backing sound which adds more feeling to whats being said and adds to the tension in what the protagonist is feeling. This movie further illustrated the voice of the other person on the phone, which was very deep and manipulative. Me and my partner knew by having a deep voice it would add the intimidation of the gangsta and would show the power the gangsta has over his enemies, making the protagonist seem vulnerable, which is the effect we are trying to portray.

Pulp Fiction (1995) And Its Influence

Pulp fiction was another film our group researched. We researched Pulp Fiction initially for mise en scene and camera shots as there were a few ideas that we could incorporate from Pulp Fiction into our short film. The camera shots in the diner which were a mixture of two-shots and over the shoulder shots where something that caught the eye of our group and was an idea we used for our first scene in our media production as we decided to use a cafe as a setting just like Pulp-Fiction. The reason for this was to recreate a postmodern gangsta experience like Pulp-Fiction and is a reason why we also decided to use low key lighting similar to Pulp-Fiction to recreate similar scenes where dialogue takes place in Pulp-Fiction.


Pulp Fiction: Honey Bunny Scene



Our own rendition of the Honey Bunny Scene



As fans of Pulp Fiction we knew the effect the suitcase had on the audience.

We felt that it added an element of mystery and further wonder into the goings

on in the film, the very same added element we wanted to include in our own

media production. Therefore in lieu of homage we added a bag with its contents

unknown and our characters driven by there desire for this bag.

Scouting

When we was given this task to create a 5 minutes short film we had to scout for potential candidates that would be suitable for our movie. As we had to change our storyline we had to scout for a whole new set of actors that fitted the conventions of our movie. As our short media film has a hybrid of genres we needed all-round characters that where enabled to fit the conventions of what we are trying to portray. 

The Protagonist

We need a reliable main character for our film who was always readily available when we needed him. We needed the actor to be male because the male needed to be involved in a commotion with a gang he used to be in. The main character needed to have a hard inside but soft exterior, and had to look relatively frail and vulnerable in comparison to the villain. Luckily within our group we noticed that we had a male that suited all these conventions and would be suitable for this movie (Miles). Miles is also a relatively short person, if you compare him to the other actors, making it easier to portray who is in control in certain shots in the movie and who power shifts in certain relationships. We where lucky to find a person that suited these conventions for our film. Moreover we knew that he had the same timetable as us and was always available to film as he was within our group, not hindering our planning and schedule.

The girlfriend of the protagonist

Finding a actress for our short film was harder to find than finding our protagonist. This was because within our school environment there are only a handful of girls and the majority are boys. At first we asked one girl within our school who we thought would play the part well as we needed a actress who was obsessed with being pampered and was in constant concentration about how she looked. We was soon to realize the she wasn't willing to participate in our film due to other commitments and a clashing timetable. For this reason, me and my partner had to look for an actress externally outside the school environment. We where able to find one and her name is Sophia. Sophia is a friend of Kingsley's my media partner and she has had experience in filming and using the Canon camera which was a boost towards creative decisions being made whilst filming. She also has acting skills which can adapt to certain roles we want the audience to believe whilst watching our short film, making her perfect for this role. 

The villain (Gangsta)

Our group needed a very serious looking male for this role to give the audience the impression of feeling threatened just like the protagonist would feel in the movie to engage them into the movie more. We scouted a potential candidates across the school for this role and we quickly found a person that had the characteristics of the role of a villain. Omed is the name of the person that will be playing the villain in our production he follows what a gangsta villain would portray as he has a very serious gleam in his eye that would threaten most people. He also has the build of a gangsta and has his hair slicked back like the traditional gangstas you would see in movies like Scarface. His timetable was very much like our groups timetable avoiding any conflicts and being useful for his availability of when he can film.

New Blog

This is a new blog that we have decided to create, we have taken some posts from our old blog and have transferred them to this blog

Brainstorm

Here we have just briefly brainstormed any ideas we could think off in lessons. If any alterations we will mainly hold a discussion and blog rather than writing it.